IEC 62899-402-8:2026

Printed electronics - Part 402-8: Printability - Measurement of qualities - Shape pattern dimension

IEC 62899-402-8:2026 specifies the measurement methods of the dimensions of the shape patterns in printed electronics. These printed patterns are treated as two-dimensional on a substrate. When the patterns are definitely affected by three-dimensional configurations, these are specified in measurement methods for vertical variance in IEC TR 62899‑402‑4 in printed electronics.
NOTE The measurement methods of dimensions of the shape patterns considering three-dimensional characteristics can be developed later after the measurement methods for vertical variance are established.

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 03-Jun-2026
• ICS: 31.180 - Printed circuits and boards
• Technical Committee: TC 119 - Printed Electronics
• Drafting Committee: WG 4 - TC 119/WG 4
• Current Stage: PPUB - Publication issued
• Start Date: 04-Jun-2026
• Completion Date: 03-Jul-2026

Standards Content (Sample)

IEC 62899-402-8 ®
Edition 1.0 2026-06
INTERNATIONAL
STANDARD
Printed electronics -
Part 402-8: Printability - Measurement of qualities - Shape pattern dimension
ICS 31.180  ISBN 978-2-8327-1270-2

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CONTENTS
FOREWORD . 3
INTRODUCTION . 5
1 Scope . 6
2 Normative references . 6
3 Terms and definitions . 6
4 Atmospheric conditions for evaluation and conditioning . 7
5 Measuring methods and instruments . 7
5.1 Measuring instrument . 7
5.2 Preparation of imaging (specimen) . 7
5.3 Overview of measuring method . 8
5.4 Measuring method for basic shape patterns . 8
5.4.1 Measuring method for a circle/a part of circle pattern . 8
5.4.2 Measuring method for square or rectangle pattern . 11
5.4.3 Measuring method for line pattern . 14
5.5 Measuring methods for a combination of basic shape patterns . 14
6 Report of results . 14
6.1 Measurement identification information . 14
6.2 Atmospheric conditions . 14
6.3 Instrument system and its specification . 14
6.4 Information of specimen . 15
6.5 Results . 15
Annex A (informative) Examples and guidelines for finding the centre of the circle
pattern . 16
A.1 Examples for finding the centre of the circle pattern . 16
A.1.1 Using a rectangle passing the outmost edges . 16
A.1.2 Using two or more lines passing any two points of edge . 17
A.2 Guidelines for finding the centre of an arc (a part of a circle) or a circle
pattern with large defects . 18
A.2.1 Examples of a part of circle and a circle pattern with large defects . 18
A.2.2 Method to find centre . 18
Annex B (informative) Calculation of dimensions of a circle pattern . 21
B.1 Calculation of variations of radius and diameter . 21
B.2 Calculation of variations of radius and diameter relative to designed
dimension . 22
Annex C (informative) Calculation of dimensions of a rectangle pattern . 24
Annex D (informative) Examples of measuring method for a combination of basic
shape patterns. 26
D.1 Measuring method for a combination of circle and lines . 26
D.1.1 Examples of circle and lines . 26
D.1.2 Measuring method . 26
D.2 Measuring method for a combination of rectangle and lines . 26
D.2.1 Examples of a combination of rectangle and lines . 26
D.2.2 Measurement method . 27
D.3 Measuring method for angle bracket . 27
D.3.1 Examples of angle bracket . 27
D.3.2 Measuring method for angle bracket . 28
Bibliography . 29

Figure 1 – Original image and a circle drawn . 8
Figure 2 – Recognized edges of circle pattern and estimated centre of the circle . 10
Figure 3 – Edges of square image and a rectangle drawn . 11
Figure 4 – Identified edges and reference sides of the rectangle . 13
Figure A.1 – Method to find the centre of a circle pattern using vertical and horizontal
lines passing the outmost edges . 16
Figure A.2 – Method to find the centre of a circle pattern using a rectangle passing the
outmost edges . 17
Figure A.3 – Estimation of the centre of a circle pattern using multiple sets of
rectangles . 17
Figure A.4 – Method to find the centre of a circle pattern using two or more lines
passing two points of the edge . 18
Figure A.5 – Example of a part of circle and circle patterns with large defects . 18
Figure A.6 – Estimated centre of a circle pattern including defect part . 19
Figure A.7 – Estimated centre of a circle pattern excluding defect part . 20
Figure B.1 – Definition of position of pixel of edge of a circle in polar coordinate . 21
Figure B.2 – Definition of position of pixel of edge of a part of circle in polar coordinate . 21
Figure B.3 – Variations of radius of the circle pattern . 22
Figure B.4 – Variations of diameter of the circle pattern . 22
Figure B.5 – Variations of diameter of the circle pattern and original diameter of a
circle . 23
Figure B.6 – Variation of diameter relative to the original dimension . 23
Figure C.1 – Definition of reference vertical and horizontal lines to calculate
dimensions of rectangle . 24
Figure C.2 – Variations of lengths and widths of the rectangle . 25
Figure D.1 – Example of combination of circle and lines . 26
Figure D.2 – Measurement method for pattern dimensions of a combination of circle
and line. 26
Figure D.3 – Combination of rectangle and lines . 27
Figure D.4 – Measurement method for pattern dimensions of combination of rectangle
and lines . 27
Figure D.5 – Example of angle bracket pattern in circuit (a) and enlarged picture of
angle bracket pattern (b) . 28
Figure D.6 – Measurement method for angle bracket pattern . 28

Table 1 – Example of reporting items . 15

INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION
____________
Printed electronics -
Part 402-8: Printability - Measurement of qualities - Shape pattern
dimension
FOREWORD
1) The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising
all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote international
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8) Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is
indispensable for the correct application of this publication.
9) IEC draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a)
patent(s). IEC takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent rights in
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shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
IEC 62899-402-8 has been prepared by IEC technical committee 119: Printed Electronics. It is
an International Standard.
The text of this International Standard is based on the following documents:
Draft Report on voting
119/532/CDV 119/563A/RVC
Full information on the voting for its approval can be found in the report on voting indicated in
the above table.
The language used for the development of this International Standard is English.
This document was drafted in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, and developed in
accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1 and ISO/IEC Directives, IEC Supplement, available
at www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs. The main document types developed by IEC are
described in greater detail at www.iec.ch/publications.
A list of all parts in the IEC 62899 series, published under the general title Printed electronics,
can be found on the IEC website.
The committee has decided that the contents of this document will remain unchanged until the
stability date indicated on the IEC website under webstore.iec.ch in the data related to the
specific document. At this date, the document will be
– reconfirmed,
– withdrawn, or
– revised.
INTRODUCTION
This document specifies the measurement of dimensions of the shape patterns in printed
electronics. The shape patterns include various patterns with shapes such as circle, ellipse,
square, rectangle, etc., as well as a combination of two or more of these, which are commonly
used as parts of printed electronics devices. Various shape patterns constitute printed
electronics devices, and consequently, the printability of patterns including dimension, gain,
loss and distortion affects device performance. Therefore, it is important to measure the
dimensions of shape patterns from the viewpoint of printability.
Some parts of pattern measurement have been specified for line pattern width, edge, and voids
in IEC 62899-402-1, IEC 62899-402-2, and IEC 62899-402-3, respectively. The IEC 62899-403
series includes basic patterns for evaluation of printing machine, basic patterns for plating, etc.,
and moreover, IEC 62899-301-2 deals with the measurement of plate master pattern dimension.
However, there is no standard for the measurement of printed patterns with general shapes.
Therefore, this document is used to measure the dimensions of printed patterns as the result
of the pattern design of the IEC 62899-403 series and plate patterns of IEC 62899-301-2 as
well as to compare the dimensions of printed patterns with the pattern design for evaluating the
printability.
This document includes two methods for the measurement of dimensions of the shape patterns:
The first one is to simply specify the dimension of the shape and compare with the original
design, and the second one is to specify the dimension as well as to quantify the related
attributes such as variation of dimension. For more accurate measurement of dimensions of the
shape patterns, it is recommended to apply the second method which requires the proper
software to recognize the boundaries or edges differentiating the pattern area from the non-
pattern area of the captured image as well as to identify the two-dimensional coordinates of
pixels that constitute the image. This document does not specify the software to recognize the
edge nor the edge detection algorithm. Depending on the user's concern and purpose, the first
method or the second method can be used, or both.
This document excludes the standardization of the measurement system. It specifies the
properties related to the shaped patterns of the printed pattern obtained from the optical
measurement system.
1 Scope
This part of IEC 62899 specifies the measurement methods of the dimensions of the shape
patterns in printed electronics. These printed patterns are treated as two-dimensional on a
substrate. When the patterns are definitely affected by three-dimensional configurations, these
are specified in measurement methods for vertical variance in IEC TR 62899-402-4 in printed
electronics.
NOTE The measurement methods of dimensions of the shape patterns considering three-dimensional
characteristics can be developed later after the measurement methods for vertical variance are established.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies.
For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any
amendments) applies.
ISO 187, Paper, board and pulps - Standard atmosphere for conditioning and testing and
procedure for monitoring the atmosphere and conditioning of samples
ISO 291, Plastics - Standard atmospheres for conditioning and testing
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following
addresses:
– IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
– ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp
3.1
shape pattern
two-dimensional pattern figure with various shapes
3.2
basic shape pattern
pattern with shapes of circle and rectangle as well as line pattern
3.3
shape pattern dimension
two-dimensional dimension of shape pattern
3.4
reference side
line that best fits each edge of a rectangle
3.5
reference length line
vertical reference side of a rectangle
3.6
reference width line
horizontal reference side of a rectangle
3.7
average length
distance between two reference length lines of a rectangle
3.8
average width
distance between two reference width lines of a rectangle
3.9
region of interest
ROI
area (inside defined boundaries) that the user wants to analyse
[SOURCE: ISO 19262:2015, 3.211]
4 Atmospheric conditions for evaluation and conditioning
The standard atmosphere for evaluation (test and measurement) and storage of the specimen
shall be a temperature of (23 ± 2) °C and relative humidity of (50 ± 10) %, conforming to
standard atmosphere class 2 specified in ISO 291. For a plastic test piece which is a polymer
substrate with printed patterns, the standard atmosphere for evaluation (test and measurement)
and storage of the specimen shall be a temperature of (23 ± 1) °C and relative humidity of
(50 ± 5) %, conforming to standard atmosphere class 1 specified in ISO 291. For a test piece
which is a paper substrate with printed patterns, the standard atmosphere for evaluation (test
and measurement) and storage of the specimen shall be a temperature of (23 ± 1) °C and
relative humidity of (50 ± 2) %, conforming to standard atmosphere specified in ISO 187.
These atmospheric conditions can be changed to give a larger tolerance for temperature
((23 ± 2) °C) and humidity ((50 ± 10) %) by agreement of the consumer and supplier. In this
case, the atmospheric conditions with a larger tolerance shall be reported.
5 Measuring methods and instruments
5.1 Measuring instrument
The measurement of dimensions of the shape pattern shall be carried out with an instrument
that can obtain the image of patterns. The repeatability and accuracy of the measuring
instrument should be less than 10 % of the tolerance specification of the pattern dimension.
From the measurement system, the image of the pattern should be converted to an image file.
The image should include the information of pixel size as well as image size converted to an
image file.
5.2 Preparation of imaging (specimen)
The specimen for measuring dimensions of the shape pattern shall be prepared as the original
image file from the measuring instrument without re-sizing and cropping and shall contain the
whole image of the pattern to be measured. The measurer should report the resolution of the
measurement system and pixel size of the image.
5.3 Overview of measuring method
Depending on the shape of the pattern, the steps to specify the dimensions should differ. The
steps for each shape pattern are shown in 5.4 and 5.5. Subclause 5.4 describes the
measurement methods for circle, rectangle, and line pattern as basic patterns, and 5.5 deals
with the examples of a combination of patterns of circles, rectangles and lines as indicated in
Annex D. Each measurement step for circle and rectangle is divided into two parts. The first
part (simple measurement) is to simply specify the dimension of the shape and compare with
the original design, and the second part (advanced measurement) is to specify the dimension
as well as to quantify the related attributes such as variation of dimension. Depending on the
user's concern and purpose, simple measurement or advanced measurement, or both, can be
used. For more accurate measurement of dimensions of the shape patterns, or for advanced
measurement, proper software is required to recognize the boundaries or edges differentiating
the pattern area from the non-pattern area of the captured image as well as to identify the two-
dimensional coordinates of pixels that constitute the image. This document does not specify the
software to recognize the edge nor the edge detection algorithm, but the edge detection
algorithm used should be reported. More information on the edge detection algorithm or other
information related to software should be reported as well on the request of custome
...